Saturday, November 18, 2006

I was nearly ready to give up blogging because I could not think of anything to blog about, although I do have some unformed posts in my mind, and then a post came to me, but I just had to make that one last comment on someone else's blog, and now I have forgotten what my post was. As Hazel Hawke said when she found out she had alteimers, althiremers, altimers, older person crazy in head disease........well she said bugger.

I will write something. I have been topping up our building's pond with my shower run off water. It is about six litres of cold before hot arrives. Usually I shower twice a day, so that is more than one bucket. Include R's shower run off, you can double that. But the pump started leaking and the level was dropping faster than my buckets could top it up. Pump has been taken away for repair, so I should catch up by the time it returns next week.

R and I have produced the second newsletter for our building. We were quite proud of the first, but the second is even better. I would hate to think how many hours and (Andrew gnashing his teeth) printer ink has gone into this. I may reproduce it here at some point and in some edited form.

I don't know the reason, but this time the newsletter will go under doors, rather than be slid into mailboxes. A few of the last newsletter went straight into the rubbish bin in the mail room.

The body corporate committee has designed a welcome pack for new residents. It is personally delivered by one of the committee members. It has in it some useful information, a fridge magnet with contact numbers and a rather nice pen.

Last year the committee put on a pre cmas barbecue for all residents, paid out of body corporate money. There were only a couple who objected to their money being spent this way, but it was enough for it not to happen this year. Attendence by about thirty out of perhaps 300 probably indicates it was not successful anyway.

A date has been set for next months committee meeting, remember I am not a committee member now, although R is. A date has been set for drinks and nibbles at one of the committee member's apartments. I am not specifically invited yet. A date is set to deliver the newsletter. A date has been set to put up the cmas tree in the foyer.

All of the above is why this building stands out from your average high rise. It is well known as a troublesome building for trades people and building managers, but it is because there are people here who care enough to be involved.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

A friend visited tonight. We don't have many of those so it was planned to the finest detail. The conversation ranged over many subjects and one was the kiddie fiddler in the NSW parliament. He was driven to a suicide attempt because of exposure.

Now you are thinking I am about to defend pedophiles and I am probably a sympathiser. I like to molest kiddies. No, that is not what it is about.

I cast my mind back to my youth, maybe 14 or 15 and I was hunt for a man. I was looking for a man...........not sure for what pupose, but whatever he wanted to do. I knew the male appendage was involved and I knew, sort of, what it could do.

I should probably go off to the cops and tell them about it and cry pedophile at these blokes who abused me. Can't though, forgot to ask their names.

I was going to sum up with that their is a huge difference between molesting a kid and having sex with an underage rent boy.

I will sum up that it is for the courts to decide. There ought not be public pressure. Each case should be decided on it's merits. There are not rules about about your sexuality and when you arrive at it and what age is right. Those in power who abuse children should be hung and quatered, but I don't thing it was the case with this George bloke. He deserves a fair trial. Paying the prostitute out of petty cash, your taxes at work, is what really concerns me.

There are two Pamelas. Two international Pamelas that we might know about in Australia. Given that I had the internet in 1996, I could have easily found out the difference bewtween the two Pamelas. But it was not high on my priortities. Latin boys dot com was more of a priority. Email was more of a priority. Even blogging has become more of a priority.

But not long ago I sorted out the two Pamelas. Is my confusion any wonder given their names? Pamela Stephenson and Pamela Anderson.

I knew that if I waited long enough and not be proactive, the matter would be sorted and it has come to pass.

They both have large bossoms and both are bleached blonds. The similarities end there. Pamela Anderson was in the US tv show Baywatch and Pamela Stephenson is Billy Connolly's wife and she was either on Not the Nine O'clock News or Drop the Dead Donkey. She was a hot chick when she was younger.

One has aged gracefully and turned into a fat assed Englishwoman, typical of her age. The other has probably had lots of surgery and her diet supressant tabs only allow her to munch lettuce leaves.

I think I know which one I would like to have a good time with. You can take the English out of the Aussie, but they will always haunt him/her.

My nephew returned from Cairns last night, late, no doubt because of the bad weather in Queensland. He has been in Queensland for a few months, bumming around, working a bit, partying a bit, tourist a bit. He is brown as a berry but otherwise no different to when he left home, initially a year ago. Of course he has a lot of experiences up his sleeve. He must be quite good socially as he has been invited to go places and stay with people all over the world.

His plan is to take up an invitation and be in Scotland by June next year. I worry a bit about his lack of career path, but it is good that he is having a good time. Plenty of time yet for him to become an old grouch like his superannuation worrying uncle.

Parents, it is about the boy or girl and how you bring them and how they turn out as decent adult citizens, not about their VCE scores, jobs, career paths. If a corporate career is not for them, then it does not matter. (I have nearly convinced myself)

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

I was unsure whether to post this or not, or modify it, but for some reason it went out on Bloglines, so some have read it already. Not sure if my readers really want to hear this kind of stuff. But hey, it is my blog and I write for myself so that I can remember things when dementia drops it's curtain on my brain. I won't be offended if you de-link me.

I have been to Thailand a few times. Just for the weather of course. Had to get away from Melbourne's hot summer.

The first time was in the late eighties. Soap massages were popular then. I had heard about them already.

Str8 guys, you shouldn't read further. It won't interest you.

We were in Pattaya. I quite like Pattaya. We, that is me, R and our two brother friends went to see a show.

It was a good show. Lot's of Thai bois dancing on stage with a selection from very young looking to older and very masculine muscle straight guys. We all selected one and my selection gives no indication of what sort of guy I really like, because I still don't even know myself. He was very handsome and undoubtedly straight and had such an incredibly deep voice, but these guys are professional and can always perform regardless whether they are with a male or female.

A soap massage is when you are both covered in slippery soap and you slither over each other. He well and truly slithered all over me and attempted to penetrate me. Fear of HIV and fear of the extra cost (am I cheap or what) made me make him stop this. He did stop without a second request and then held me tight and whispered untelligable Thai words into my ear while he held me tight with his big muscly arms and peck kissed me as well. I think my tip was a little on the moderate side, given I am remembering the experience so many years later. I am ashamed.

At least I was only with one guy, unlike the German fraus who would take three guys off at a time. Tarts.

Handing these bags out the entrance to Prahran Market was a nice promotional idea, but sorry Clem Newton Brown, I am not in your district and in voting order, I will possibly vote Green, Democrat, Labor, People Power, Liberal, DLP and Family First. As you can see, your party is low on the list. I have little respect for the Liberal Party.

I am not sure why he was selected to represent the district of Prahran. It is a marginal seat and he seems like a bit of a loose cannon to me.

I met his Labor opponent once, the sitting member. Tony Lupton came across as sincere and also practical and honestly pragmatic. I suppose my district of Albert Park will re-elect John Thwaites. He is ok. The gay icon description is wearing thin though, especially as he is getting older. I have not met him, but at the Farmers Market at the Peanut Farm in St Kilda, he did say hi to us. Again the Liberal competition seems not great but I guess they did not want to waste a good candidate on an un-winable seat.

I was not going to be working on election day and I was looking forward to the trek to the polling booth in South Melbourne and the sausage sizzle. But now I am working for pretty well the whole voting period, so I will have to vote in advance at the pre election polling location.

I think it was only the second time I voted, I had to vote absentee on polling day. I was not very politically educated, but I knew which party I wanted to vote for. There were no how to vote cards and one of the ballot papers was not marked with the parties. I don't think this happens now, but I don't want to vote accidently for Family First, so I have checked all the candidates, parties etc at the Victorian Electoral Commission website. Good website and easy to navigate.

Monday, November 13, 2006

My mother and my grandmother had a pretty normal sort of mother daughter relationship so far as I observed.

Mum recounted the only time her mother ever hit her. If my grandmother did this these days, she would probably be locked up.

Mum still does not really understand why it happened and can only put it down to pre-menstrual tension.

Mum picked a small bunch of flowers to give to a friend at school. She was walking across the yard to the house and her mother was walking towards the wash house with a bundle of wood to fire the copper for clothes washing.

I honestly find this hard to believe about my very gentle and placid grandmother.

My grandmother was so enraged about my mother picking her flowers, she picked up a thorny accacia branch and beat the back of my mother's legs until she was cut and bleeding.

Mum went and sat on an embankment and cried and shortly later, her mother came out and cleaned up the wounds. I asked her what her father thought of this but she could not remember. She said that he probably would have sided with her, his pet, and not her mother.

Pretty horrendous hey. But it was the only time Mum was ever hit by either of her parents, and that was in a time when physical punishment was fairly common place. Mum was an only child and she will readily confess that she was spoilt.

A bit later, Mum said to me, "You know Andrew, I can remember always kissing Dad goodnight and giving him a hug, but I can't remember if I used to kiss Mum goodnight. I don't think I ever did."

As mentioned in the previous post my mother's family used to gather at Mordialloc on Boxing Day and New Year's Day for a picnic and get together. Not all Mum's memories of Mordialloc are good.

These get togethers stopped when she married but had declined well before then. One of her cousins was horse playing with another, fell back and hit his head on a car bumper bar and died instantly. She has a photo of him taken half and hour before sitting on a fence singing, 'I'm sitting on top of the world'.

The family did not have so much enthusiasm for the get together after that.

At around sixty, my grandmother, my mother's mother had cancer of woman's parts. I don't know what really. She had to go into Cabrini for an operation. She had never had much to do with doctors etc and she was terrified. She thought it was the end and she would die.

Mum asked her if she wanted to do anything before she underwent the operation and she requested a visit to Mordialloc Beach. Mum, my grandfather and two of my grandmother's sisters took her to the beach the day before the operation. Mum said the outing was absolutely horrible. No one knew what to say. They would burst into tears spontaneously. It was a miserable mistake.

My grandmother survived the operation and lived another twenty or so years. My personal memory of the time was visiting her in Cabrini after the op. I don't think my grandmother had ever spoken harshly to we kids in her life. But wow, did she snap at us when we started fiddling with the tap on the heating radiator. We were shocked into silence.

We left Mum's Pakenham cottage and drove to Dandenong and then along Cheltenham Road. Dandenong seemed to go on forever until we reached Parkmore shopping centre and I realised that we were now in Keysborough. The two have joined. Last time I went along the road, there was a big gap in between them and there wern't many houses in Keysborough. I was amazed. We did pass one remaining market garden and also an old original house with large garden stakes I guess for tomato plants. Mum surmised he was Eyetalian. (I am sure she has picked that up from my step father, although her parents used to say it that way too)

We parked at Mordialloc and the parking ticket machine was broken. Nice. The men were there to fix it later. We walked out along the pier and Mum said that it had been extended and sure enough, their were much newer boards at the last part. We sat for a while on a seat and chatted and gazed around.

We walked back and along the sea wall, contructed in the mid nineteen twenties, partly with money donated by the nearby carnival that I remember from my very early years. The memory cells were partly defective. I could not recall that there were two rotundas and neither could Mum. The beach down to the water alongside the pier used to be flat too. Now it is built up with coarse sand and not the fine sand we remember.

When Mum was young every Boxing Day and New year's day, they would religiously venture from their South Oakleigh market garden to Mordialloc Beach for a picnic and games with the many relatives.

When the family days happened, she said the whole grassed area would be covered in cars and market gardeners' trucks. I reckon they were all the mafia of their time at Melbourne's vegetable market.

There are three kiosks in different buildings and all were closed. At least Mum managed to work out where Sails on the Bay is located. (a quick google tells me this name is wrong, but no matter) We went back to the car and drove the short distance to the main street of Mordialloc for refreshment.

The whole area was full of memories. The shop across the road where we used to get an icecream was gone, but I recalled it so vividly. There used to be a lot of vegetation to get through from the grassed car parking area but much of it has gone. Lest you think it was native vegetation, I think it was mostly mirror leaf bushes. What I immediately noticed was that the Mordicalloc Creek does not stink like it used to. The stench of the Mordialloc Creek is iconic to me, and it would seem it has gone. But there was still something that attracts the flies. Everyone's backs were covered in them and all were doing the great Australian salute.

Now the last time I stopped at the shops in Mordicalloc must have been over twenty years ago. It looked dirty, sleazy and many shops were boarded up. The housing in that area looked cheap and nasty too.

But wow, has that all changed. BMWs and Saabs parked in the street, a Rolls pulling out of a side street, fine coffee and cake (apple and cinnamon crumble if you want to know, and unlike Acland Street cakes, it was moist and delicious) at a cafe and a monster Safeway above the shop, which I discovered a bit later. And, most importantly, there were interesting looking people around. Can't say Safeway drove the local shops away. They were already gone.

While I have fond memories of childhood experiences at Mordialloc, my early adult years memories are not so good. I never thought it would become what it now is. I should have bought property there.

Sadly an almost famous media person's wife died from breast cancer this week. She was in the media too, thirty two years old. Way wrong.

But our Kylie survived breast cancer and last night performed in Sydney after an eighteen month break for treatment. While there are a significant number of gay people who are anti Kylie and all she represents, I just love her.

This morning I checked out all the online reports that I could find and saw all the pics I could find. The Sydney Daily Telegraph links were mostly broken and shame on them. I suppose no one who knows what they are doing wants to work Saturday night or early Sunday morning.

Extra coverage on tv news tonight and wow. Is she good or what? Gorgeous.

Just sent this email to my Sydney friend. Wonder what he will say back?

Sunday, November 12, 2006

On the way to delinquent mother's place today, we called in at the large office supply company in Warrigal Road and also bought a potted marigold for the balcony. If there is anything I hate paying for in life, it is ink cartriges. I know it is really a 'time payment' transaction for your incredibly cheap printer/scanner/copier, but still.

Tv was delivered, easily set up. Just plugged it in really. Wrote a list of channels and corresponding buttons on the remote. Assisted step father with a small tv that was given to him and he keeps in the backroom to watch when my mother wants to watch Home and Away. Yes L, you have to switch the tv to tv from dvd with the remote. You can then see the the tv channels. We wrote a list of channels for that tv. He is 78 and dvd and vcr are all new to him. The old tv was put in the 'years in the waiting pending garage sale room'. They will keep the old Rank Arena for emergencies. It would have to be a pretty dire emergency. "This tv has Japanese parts, not Chinese parts", he said. I suppose he meant that this is a good thing. Thirty years ago he would have said Australian parts and not Japanese garbage parts. He moves with the world.

Compared to our tv, the picture wasn't much but they were very very pleased with it and it did not look too dominant in the room. My brother will probably visit Tuesday and he won't notice the tv initially, but then will grin widely and ask where it came from.

We checked out Mum's garden, loaded a bag with lemons, said hi to the budgies in the aviary and had a pie each for lunch.

Mum had previously asked if we wanted to go for a drive to Phillip Island and I declined. Too far for us. We are getting old. We need our arvo kip. We were going to go home, but then she suggested we go to Mordialloc Beach in separate cars and we could go home from there. We did after a long wait for her to get ready. This seems par for the course for all women and there is nothing you can do about it. Another fact of life.

After much thought, we have decided to give our not so old 29" flat screen tv to my mother and step father. I doubt it is worth much anyway. I had a chat to her about it as I really wanted to make sure they would appreciate and wanted it. It is a fairly large tv for their small lounge room and it will not suit her decor at all. But her present tv, a woodgrain veneer model, is over twenty years old, does not have a remote and the picture is so bad, you cannot read writing on the screen.

But I know they will fight over the remote. Mum will turn the tv down, and then step father will turn it back up again. I also think her love affair with Dr Jack Quade may ease off when she sees that his skin is not perfect.

When going to Prahran for shopping and R is not with me (he makes me walk), I usually catch the bus. A long time ago I wrote about the cheating that bus drivers tried with the now discontinued short trip tickets. I can't remember the details now. Most are not very diligent about checking tickets, but not all. Because there is a person, the bus driver there watching, nearly all passengers do the right thing.

The above was written a couple of weeks ago and saved and I can't recall where I was going with the post. I am clearing the decks of un-finished posts. But on matters transport I have clarified a public transport ticketing matter to the point of non-clarity.

I mentioned it back here. Briefly, if you validate a ten trip two hour ticket twice in one day, then that is the most you will pay for the day. But if the first validation is the last trip on the ticket, then when you do your second validation on a new ticket, obviously the system does not know you are the same person and so for a third trip, you would pay again.

R did not think ahead and was in this situation and decided he would only pay twice and not three times.

I asked the opinion on this from a couple of Revenue Protection Officers (ticket checkers who can fine you) some time later.

One said that he would make a report, probably resulting in a fine. The other said she would not. He has paid the correct amount, she said.

Furthermore, they then mentioned the Sunday Saver ticket. He said that if he came across a person with an expired two hour ticket on Sunday, he would make a report. She said, she would not as the person had already paid more than the cost of the Sunday Saver ticket.

I am surprised that there is not a definitive policy on this, or perhaps there is and some choose to ignore it, but if you are in one of these dubious situations, I can only suggest you turn on the charm and adopt the confused blond persona who tried to do the right thing. But if you get uppity or lippy with either of the above mentioned officers, a fine will surely result.

There is a despotic dictator in Iraq. He threatens this country's considerable commercial interests in the area, including our oil supply. Our country cannot function without a reliable supply of oil. We need to remove him and his ruling family. It will create a temporary power vacumm and perhaps cause some short term civil instability but we will leave that to the Iraquis to deal with, as they have for centuries.

Call me niave, but it could not have been any worse than what happened and is happening could it?

He is back in the news again. Isn't Major Michael Mori looking a bit chubby?

This Hicks bloke is a bit of a prat. Perhaps misguided even. I am thinking that he has probably already paid for his crime, although according to Australian law and US law, I am not sure that he did commit a crime. I don't think he ever punched anyone. You can get away with doing that in Australia.

Being an Australian gives you certain privileges. For their own political purposes, our government denies him his Australian privileges. It is so so wrong. If it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone. The outrage should have been loud and clear at the outset. He committed no crime in the US or Australia.

The US has no right to detain him, and since they have, then full force of Australia's political and diplomatic resources should have been mobilised to free him from his illegal imprisonment by a foreign country.

I think he may be released soon and I won't be at the airport to greet him, but I will think that things are a little more right in Australia.

Always good to see a new post from fellow bloggers. When a new post arrives in Bloglines and after reading it, I may sometimes comment on the post. But then you see there are forty five comments already. Written at ten am, by ten pm there are now 46 comments.

My incisive words of wisdom will be totally overwhelmed. Still, Steph writes a pretty good blog. But now I am thinking your blog can be too popular. Fancy dealing with that many comments. I don't think it will be a problem for me.

Later update: Now 87 comments and the number is not unusual for any of her posts

My public diary, not my private one. I live in a highrise apartment building in inner Melbourne. My interests are varied but top of the list are old buildings, history and public transport. You will find plenty of personal experiences to read in my blog too. Just be aware I am not an historian, amateur or otherwise. While I make some effort to be accurate, I don't do proper methodical research so I advise you check all details on your own behalf should you wish to quote me. Your comments are very welcome, but try to be nice to my fragile yet overblown ego. I enjoy receiving email. You can find my eddress in my complete profile.